| Notes l |
covers the "Romance" or Italiano+ Româneasca set, part of the "Indo-European" intercontinental affinity; comprising 1 set of languages (= 30 outer languages) spoken traditionally by communities throughout southern Europe, from Portugal to Moldova, with extensions to all other continents of the world: 51-A ITALIANO+ ROMÂNEASCA including 4 arterial languages: Português (Portuguese); Español (Spanish); Français (French); Italiano (Italian) This phylozone comprises the modern Romance relatives of Latin (and Latin itself), the only surviving languages of the "Italic" component of the Indo-European intercontinental affinity. The present internal diversity of the Romance idioms in Italy may reflect an historical influence < other Italic languages absorbed by Latin during the earliest period of Roman power. In the same way, the internal diversity among Romance idioms in northern Italy and further west probably reflects an influence < the former [50=] Celtic ("Gaulish" or Britannic-related) languages of continental Europe, whose own relationship with Italic (including Latin) no doubt accelerated their submersion. |